Old Comments:

Well obviously the ramp is sloped so there really is no where to go plus the water would be low enough to control most of the current. I still think it would be ideal to put a barrier on the back end of the ramp. This is kind of weird anyways. I wouldn't ride it.

A floating body displaces its own weight of water. A boat makes a hole in the water by floating. If that hole was filled with water, the weight of that water would be the same as the total weight of the boat. The water level stays the same, so the water displaced by the boat is not lifted, the boat is lifted instead. A caisson containing floating boats will always weigh the same as one filled with water to the same level.
Now can I have my bath in peace please?
Nice picture by the way!

bb - this principle is good for the lift as the boats are all afloat.
The volume of water displaced would equal the weight of the boats.
If they had sunk, like your lead, then the Archimedes principle would not apply in the same way.

Everyone mentions this principle but no one seems to actually know exactly what it means, except for Samu, who is the first to point out that the boat displaces a mass of water equal with the VOLUME (not mass) of the boat that is submerged.
So if you sink a cube of lead and one of, say, wood in water, both of the exact same volume, they will displace the same volume and mass of water. The fact that one will sink and the other will float is a whole different matter.

"Of course both gondolas always weigh the same whether they have boats in them or not. Remember the Archimedes Principle – each boat displaces its exact own weight of water as it enters the gondola. So assuming the water depth is the same (and that is computer controlled) each gondola will transport the same total weight i.e. two hundred and fifty tonnes no matter how many boats it contains. The wheel therefore is perfectly balanced and takes only 1.5kw hours of electricity or enough to boil six kettles to complete the half revolution."
www.dalefield.com/nzfmm/ magazine/FalkirkW.html

Does someone know if that thing has a name?
@Weee: bb & dutch are right. Be careful: The water pushes the boat against gravity, the total force is proportional to the volume of the boat under water. But as dutch says, the weight does not disappear.

i'm sorry to disagree with you....the fact that the boat pushes away the same amount of wheigt in water what the boat it self weights is true but it's all about the reference point. in fact this law keeps the boat afloat
you have to take into consideration that the box the water and the boat weigh the sum of their individual masses...for instance if you put an orange in a pot of water the orange float but the total weight of the pot is bigger...in the case of the Falkirk Wheel it's actualy very easy to even out the weigh of the empty "bucket" by pumping water into it...the only hard thing has to be the pillar in order to support that amount of water

I think weee's point is that whatever might be floating in the carriers, the weight depends only on the level of water. There might be a paper boat, a yacht, or nothing, the total weight will be always the same, so the elevator is always naturally balanced. Not very intuitive but true.
Thanks for reading.

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